Section leader Nicola Wright came up with the inventive colour-coded strips to help identify individual birds in the zoo’s colony – one of the biggest in Europe.

Nicola said: “We usually use coded stainless steel flipper bands, which became unavailable, so I needed to come up with a solution to help us identify any juveniles and officially record them on the zoo database.

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“After researching different methods, I decided on a cable tie threaded with coloured plastic beads, with each colour representing a different number.

“That unique number code remains with the bird throughout its life and helps us keep track of its behaviour, diet and health.

“We attached the cable tie by simply threading it around their flipper and so far, they’re doing the job and we can easily spot them from a distance.”

As well as the bands, the penguins also all need to be microchipped as part of the official registration process and that involves catching every bird in Penguin Bay and double-checking their details are on record.

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Nicola added: “It’s quite a tricky task to round them all up. It’s not so bad if they’re in their nesting boxes as they’re easy to retrieve from there, but some of them burrow under the boxes and it’s not so fun sticking your hand into a dark hole not knowing if there’s a razor sharp beak coming your way!”

The task was completed on pool cleaning day, so keepers could corral the birds together in the empty pool, which they couldn’t get out of by themselves.

Nicola said: “This year we’ve counted 85 in total and chipped and banded eight youngsters, which is great news!”